Minds of Madness
by The pen or The sword
Summary: Alex Mercer viewed many things in the world with contempt, in fact he could count the things that didn't annoy him in life on one finger. Yet despite knowing just how irredeemable and annoying this world could be, nothing had prepared him to deal with the madness currently taking up space in his lab.


**Someone mentioned mercer fit in with cuthulu verse and here we are**

Mercer was frustrated, this wasn't an uncommon experience for him. Many things in his everyday life frustrated him to no end, such as Dana's insistence they watch movies together every Friday regardless of how pivotal a stage his research was in. Dana's complete disregard for her own safety and willingness to risk her life over her journalism? Frustrating. Her willingness to barge into his lab and force him to spend time with her? Frustrating.

All these minor frustrations paled in comparison to the sheer annoyance Mercer felt boil through his veins at the sight before him. In the middle of his lab, twelve men stood, eleven of them garbed in robes of red and black. A familiar red symbol embroidered across the front, mirroring the symbol upon his own back.

Yet it was the twelfth man kneeling upon the ground, that stood out the most. He too wore a robe, dark blue with seemingly random star-shaped embroidery, he smelt of the sea. He was gagged, bound in chains, stumps where his hands should be, legs twisted at the wrong angle, and his eyes had been violently removed. If not for the rise and fall of the man's chest mercer would have thought him dead.

The cultist adorned in robes of black bowed before him, and despite not needing to breathe mercer sighed. This was the fourth time this group of cultist had broken into his lab. He had tried everything. First, a group of five broke in, he ate them and relocated three counties over. The men seemed to mistakenly believe he was an avatar/child of the Great Old One Baoht Z'ugga-Mogg.

They had reached this conclusion as one of their cult members had a vision of his creation. Though according to the memories he'd garnered from one of the men their supposed seer had been on LSD while watching the old news broadcast and reading Dana's reports about Manhattan. He knew of the other members in this group and deemed it simpler to move rather than hunt down the fools...

He would come to regret this decision. A month later, a group of forty broke into his new lab, he responded by consuming them of course. That's when he learned he'd made a critical mistake, the surviving members had been gathering others under their insane ideas. The seer had become the de-facto head of the group, taking money from members to feed her drug habit. She claimed it helped her perceive the future. Apparently under her drug-fueled hallucinations was an actual ability as she had somehow predicted where he would relocate.

The mad seer had also convinced the members that being consumed by him was the ultimate form of giving thanks to him. She had somehow managed to amass a following in the hundreds. Alex wished to avoid attention and he now had to deal with a group of mad idiots trying to force-feed themselves to him. While he didn't have to worry about the military Dana would be at risk if he was discovered by the government. Thus he devised a new plan...

When the next group broke into his lab he gave them orders "Bring me knowledge of other worshipers, other cults, I hunger for knowledge of the abyss bring it to me!" He had figured the group would return with some basic info he had long since obtained from raiding ancient archives. Honestly considering their whole stance on force-feeding him he should have predicted something like this.

"Oh, child of pestilence we bring before you a worshiper of the great dreamer. Bring him into your folds and grant him the honor of being closer to Baoht Z'ugga-Mogg." One of the kneeling apostles spoke, mad reverence clear through his voice. Mercer felt his annoyance grow, he already had numerous test subjects. Many of the cultists he had captured were in far greater states of mutation and madness than the man before him.

He had serious doubts he could gain anything useful from this man, his body and mind hadn't been overly twisted by his knowledge yet. A phenomenon he had named Mystica-Insaniam, the process by which a mind and body would be twisted by the knowledge it gained. He had begun cataloging and researching it a few weeks after his escape from Manhattan. He had run into many problems determining the stages as there seemed to be many subdivisions of the phenomenon and individuals experienced different symptoms at different rates.

Yet, despite these obstacles, he had been able to narrow down some universal symptoms that appeared first. The onset almost always began with mad mumbling and schizophrenic mannerisms. Then as it progressed those afflicted seemed to gain the ability to either to ignore pain or take pleasure from it. After which physical signs usually began to manifest themselves.

His hive-minded nature and lack of solid biology seemed to have granted him some resistance, if not straight immunity to the phenomenon. Which he was rather pleased about as continuing his research while losing his rationality would have been problematic. Plus Dana would no doubt have claimed she was right about him overworking...

The man before him clearly had only just begun his transition through the stages of Mystica-Insaniam, as he moaned in pain and hadn't even attempted to move his destroyed legs. The suffering was written across his mutilated face showing no signs of pleasure, and lacking the blank look that would have occurred in place of it.

Based on his incredibly early stage he was no doubt a low ranking cultist, and Mercer had serious doubts that the fools who had been worshiping him were able to gather subjects as quietly as he preferred. The fools had no doubt made some scene that mercer would hear about the next day.

For a moment mercer considered killing them all, but doing so would only bring more of the cultist on their next visit. With a sigh, mercer readjusted his plan.

"Do you believe I was incapable of capturing such a pathetic creature? I asked you to bring me the knowledge and you bring me a fool! I can gather information from living far more efficiently than you ever could! I wanted ancient knowledge lost to the annals of time, not fools I could devour on my own!" Mercer commanded in his most intimidating voice, adding a growling undercurrent as he forced his eyes to glow a cold blue.

The cultist groveled at his feet some begging for mercy, others begging that he simply end them for their failure. Mercer felt himself internally banging his head against a wall. The fools would no doubt commit mass suicide to appease him if left to their own devices.

"Silence! I will forgive you this sin should you listen well, do not draw attention to yourself, explore lost archives of knowledge and at all cost! Do not hunt the fools whom I could make my pray! None can ever know of your connection to me, many in this world would..." Alex trailed off as he considered how to spin this tale in such a way they would never dare risk revealing him to others.

"Yes, never reveal my location or identity to those that can't explicitly be trusted! I am not at my full strength, I need time to grow into the full extent of my powers!" Alex fibbed as the cultist all swore they would not fail him. Technically it wasn't a total lie, his evolutionary potential didn't have a set upper limit and his knowledge was ever-increasing. He was no fool though, many beings in the greater comos who would view him as nothing more than an ant. Which was why he was so interested in researching the creatures beyond human comprehension. What was out there? He wasn't human never had been but he was still a scientist and he wished to understand.

"What should we do with him, Lord?" The cultist had finished their vows of loyalty and now looked at him expectantly.

"I'll deal with him now go! Explain my words to the others." Mercer exclaimed as the cultist rushed out of the room. Letting loose a melodramatic sigh mercer wrapped his hand around the mutilated man's neck and dragged him down a darkened corridor leading deeper into the makeshift lab. This hall lead into a large room that had been dug out by a large creature of some sort.

As Mercer entered the room a large snake-like head emerged from one of the walls, Mercer smirked as he eyed the large hydra. It had served him well in creating his current lab. Looking past it he viewed his numerous experiments. The large circular chamber was filled with fleshy yellow pods of varying sizes, some of the smallest pods were about the size of an adult male. They were full of liquid and appeared to be occupied by people of varying ages, genders, sizes, and mutations.

Several parts of the room not filled with these pods were sealed off with a semi-transparent orange membrane. Behind this membrane creatures of horrific visages stood. They had once been men but their bodies appeared to be twisted, many of them screeched out in madness. Many of these creatures had large black and red tumorous growths ripping through their monstrous forms. Slowly but surely these tumors were overwhelming their host twisted bodies.

Mercer felt the man squirm in his hand, even without eyes he sensed the maddening presence of the creatures before him. Smirking Mercer threw the man at the membrane, it split open like a gaping maw allowing the man to land before the horrifying creatures. Mercer watched in interest as the creature ripped the man limb from limb. It seemed even if they originated from the same cult their madness overwhelmed their sense of camaraderie. Mercer made a mental note of this as he felt a vibration from his chest.

A tendril pulled through his body holding the vibrating object to his ear. "Dana? What? It's not Friday! Really, (sigh) fine. Be there in ten." Mercer spoke into the phone frowning as he looked upon his work. He turned an left heading for the exit, there was one major problem. One he was not actively avoiding but one he had yet to find a good answer for.

The Mad seer claimed to have had a vision of his creation, Dana's blog, news footage, and cameras from Manhattan would no doubt give them plenty of reason to believe he was some lesser god. Yet none of that info should have lead the seer to the conclusion he was a virus. So that left the question, how had she connected him to the god of pestilence?

**Another one shot that could be expanded in the future? Yes, yes it is! Hope you enjoyed leave your love/hate in the reviews.**


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